Test strips are basic diagnostic instruments that are commonly used in various applications such as pregnancy test, drug test, and diabetes test. The test strip technology is widely used in different areas including medicine, biology, and food safety.
However, test strip technology is considered inaccurate for many reasons. Different manufacture batches of the test strips can have variations on colors and intensities. To receive quantitative result, a human operator has to compare the test strip with a reference card. This introduces subjective human errors. There are dedicated machines for accurately reading the test strip results. But these machines are typically expensive and cumbersome to move, and requires professional training on how to operate the machines.